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My most embarrasing moment: when I was in school I used to accompany a lot, singers, mostly - part of the curriculum. During a rehearsal, a singer told me that she may not sing a particular passage (about half a page) if she didn't feel she was up to it and to just go ahead then and skip it. I told her, oh, no, it is SO beautiful and you sing it so well. She insisted. Well, during the performance, when I saw that she wasn't singing it, instead of skipping to the agreed to place, I played her singing line, except that I played many wrong notes making it obvious that she had stopped singing! It was horrible. I don't think she spoke to me again.

About not 'firing back' at him: you can't really fire back in such a situation. There's a much greater downside than upside.

Yeah, calling him a schmuck at that moment might not have been the wisest choice.

But sticking a professional quality rendition and asking him (politely but insincerely) to demonstrate how he would improve it were also not in the cards either.

Oh, I did overcome it. I have played since then, though not in master class situations, and I have even allowed my son to endure the tender mercies of the master class. But that experience did leave an indelible impression on me.

At one of my recitals a few years back I played the Gliere Prelude in Db, I started off well. Typically you will tremble at first but then recover, for some reason my hands began trembling half-way through the piece. Nothing to bad, managed to keep the notes together, the musicality on the other hand, was a different story.

As some of you may know, I am the worst at memorizing pieces. After I started playing again (about a year ago), I was just learning some Beethoven sonata's, and could play them reasonably well (for untrained ears, it was great, for people who know it very well, it was below average). I was out with some colleague's and there was a piano there. Immediately one of my colleague's was eager to show what he could do. It was the most basic pop music one could thinks of, just ramming the left hand some 3-note chords, right hand 1 note melodies, and sometimes for show, do a 3-chord arpeggio up and down (really slow too).

So they were talking about how great he was etc, and asked if anybody else could play. So of course i said I have played the piano for a long time, and they wanted to hear. Normally I can at least play the first page of the 2nd mov. from opus 90 Beethoven, but after trying it 2 times (and failing) I gave that up. Next was another piece, which I couldn't remember either. And so the only thing I could play, was my child-hood memorized Mozart Alla Turca, and believe me, it went BAD. I felt really embarrassed. It wasn't too bad because none of them actually knew any of the pieces I attempted, but still....

I have to say I still carry that one around with me, as I eagerly try to memorize full sonata's .

Here's one I keep trying to forget. When I was in high school, the music teacher asked me to play Clair de Lune with the school orchestra. It was my very first time playing in public. (My private teacher did not have recitals.) I worked hard and learned it. There were several places where we were playing 3 against 4 and I was concerned but for some unknown reason he felt a rehearsal was not necessary.

I arrived for the performance and there was the conductor and orchestra up on the stage. My piano was on the floor of the auditorium... 4 feet below the stage. I could not see the conductor and I could not hear the orchestra. I somehow muscled my way through it. I knew it was awful so when it was done, I ran away in horror and cried. He never said a word to me.

He was twelve and he was competing at a very rich regional audition. He had a kick-butt version of Prokofiev's Montagues & Capulets as his second piece. He was playing the rondo movement of Haydn's piano concerto as his first piece. That was the 'easy' lead in to the Prok. So, he starts and I can hear that there is just something not quite right. It's just not as clean and flowing as usual. Then in the middle he just blanks and stops for a second. He goes back a couple of measures and comes around a second time .... blanks. He goes around a third time .... stumble, fumble, force ahead two measures and finally finishes. He then gets into the Prokofiev and is doing fine. But one minute in, the judge says, "thank you, time's up." This was one unhappy kid outside the hall.

It gets worse. He had to give two performances of the Haydn eight days later, with a local orchestra.

Actually, that's a life lesson best learned early. Fall off the horse, get right back on. He buckled down and worked like a madman to rework the whole piece in a week so that it was really and truly memorized, section by section, phrase by phrase.

Actually, that's a life lesson best learned early. Fall off the horse, get right back on. He buckled down and worked like a madman to rework the whole piece in a week so that it was really and truly memorized, section by section, phrase by phrase.

Yep, you're never invulnerable against a conflict that you've never faced before, in my experience. Direct confrontation is the best approach. You can never fail if you at least learn from your mistake.

I remember during my recital, I was thinking more "WHAT ARE THEY THINKING WHILE I'M PLAYING? I WONDER IF I CAN READ THEIR MINDS? CAN THEY READ MINE?" than I was thinking about playing the piece ROFL. That's when I learned two things: Understand the music you play and make an emotional connection with the music- enjoy it.

stores
6000 Post Club Member
Registered: 12/28/09
Posts: 6649
Loc: Here, as opposed to there

It wasn't during a "performance" per se, but, when I was 13 I had my very first job and it was as church organist for a cathedral (I took over for my teacher at the time who was retiring). At some point in my first year there I remember setting my music up on the stand for a postlude which would come after prayer and in doing so my left foot slipped off the bench bar and landed on one of the pedals letting out one big sonic boom during prayer LOL!!! Needless to say I kept my perch in the organ loft until I was POSITIVE that everyone had left the church after services hahaha!

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"And if we look at the works of J.S. Bach — a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity... -Debussy

I have two worst moments to share. One of these was mentioned in a post several years ago; if it starts to sound familiar, skip down.

I went to Duke, which has a world-renowned "rice diet" program for major weight loss. An opera singer who was built for the part came there and was looking for an accompanist to work with her for the several months she expected to stay. I volunteered. Twice a week for several months, we met at the house where she was staying to rehearse arias from Wagner, Verdi, Puccini and other masters. It was a captivating experience for me. Her sense of pitch was dead perfect, and she produced a powerful, golden sound that was made to fill large spaces. But her accompaniments were complicated, they were taking too much time away from my own practice, and I couldn't stop listening to her gorgeous voice well enough to concentrate on the score. I told her I wasn't being fair to her. She agreed and fired me on the spot.

It was only years later that I connected her name and face. I had been dismissed by Jessye Norman. Ah well -- more time for Hanon.

My other has a lot to do with why I don't have too many "worst moment" stories to tell. I loved studying with my college piano teacher. He was a great teacher of technique and a wonderful music coach. Some years after I graduated, I returned to campus to hear him play a recital -- something he did very infrequently, I think due to performance anxiety. He breezed through some Scarlatti and Chopin, then dug into the Liszt B minor sonata. About two-thirds through the piece, there was a sudden silence. He'd lost his way and couldn't find it in his head. After a couple of unsuccessful restarts, he stood up and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm unable to continue this performance. Let's start intermission a little early and I'll try to make it up to you in the second half."

He came back after halftime and played the living hell out of "Pictures at an Exhibition," and played some tricky Ravel and Rachmaninoff as encores. It ended on a triumphant note, but the embarrassment and the terror that it might happen again in the second half must have been awful for him. (I saw him afterward, but was not about to bring it up unless he did, which he didn't.) That night, I decided I would never again perform in public from memory. I've followed that rule in the nearly 40 years since and never regretted it.

Wow those are some interesting stories. I didn't know who Jessye Norman was, but I googled her and evidently she's big in opera. I couldn't help but giggle at her decisiveness when firing you. It's all good though buddy.

That Sonata in B minor is pretty long, I can understand how he may have forgotten some of it. Wow though, how could you never perform from memory? Unless you have very good sight-reading skills, that must be a difficult task.. I think that inevitably if you practice something enough, you'll end up memorizing it. That happened when I was trying to sightread Bach, but decided not to look at the score. I guess it's always good to have the score for confirmation.. as long as it doesn't hold you back.

I was accompanying a friend one time, a long time ago. Just before we walked out on stage, she hissed, "Hurry up! Go change your shoes!" It was a formal affair, and in my rush I had forgotten I was wearing a ratty old pair of runners and old sweat socks that were full of holes.

I was in the middle of accompanying a violin sonata, and suddenly I had to sneeze. So what could I do? I turned to the page turner and did what I had to, without missing a beat. They both gave me the most shocked look for a second, then went on with the job at hand.

I've often had to sneeze during practise, but fortunately never in a performance! I wonder what I'd have to do . . .

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Patience's the best teacher, and time the best critic. - F.F.Chopin

So many drama from not having the sheet Thats one thing they sure did better in Vivaldi - Mendelssohn's time.

Are you saying that pianists in the "old days" memorized better? Actually, I read that Clara Schumann was the first one to perform without the score. Although, keyboardists had memorized their music before (as people are saying, it is hard not to), they still performed with the score.

After a couple of unsuccessful restarts, he stood up and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm unable to continue this performance. Let's start intermission a little early and I'll try to make it up to you in the second half."

So many drama from not having the sheet Thats one thing they sure did better in Vivaldi - Mendelssohn's time.

Are you saying that pianists in the "old days" memorized better? Actually, I read that Clara Schumann was the first one to perform without the score. Although, keyboardists had memorized their music before (as people are saying, it is hard not to), they still performed with the score.

I'm saying that in the "old days" people always performed with score. Mendelssohn was known to be able to play everything from memory, however he always played with score, as he deemed it arrogant to play without it. What a wise man . So kind to those who can play, but have trouble memorizing.

Right! Pianists and singers are the only ones who perform without the score regularly. It's not fair because the other instrumentalists get to use the music...I'm not sure why it became standard. But I feel like when I memorize a piece I know it better, and I can concentrate on musical aspects instead of being worried about the notes.

My feeling is that everyone can do what they want or feel more comfortable with; as for me, a piece gets memorized WAY BEFORE I'm able to play it decently. I guess it 'gets into' my brain before it gets into my fingers....

in the "old days" people also had to improvise a lot, I think it's easier to play without a score than to get the King in the audience give you a theme and improvise on the spot a 4 voice fugue on it knowing that if you mess it up you're likely going to be fired

[h]ow could you never perform from memory? Unless you have very good sight-reading skills, that must be a difficult task.. I think that inevitably if you practice something enough, you'll end up memorizing it. That happened when I was trying to sightread Bach, but decided not to look at the score. I guess it's always good to have the score for confirmation.. as long as it doesn't hold you back.

I was actually able to memorize -- and perform reliably from memory -- through my younger years. At the time I decided to start using scores in performance, my memorization skills were still good. I just decided I wasn't going to subject myself or my audience to the crash-and-burn risk my teacher had experienced. To this day, I don't feel like a piece is ready to performa until I've gpttogo it mostly memoriaed.

[Sorry about the two-part post; the keyboard on my other computer started acting up. Starting over with the last sentence:]

To this day, I don't feel like a piece is ready to perform until I have it mostly memorized. In fact, some parts of pieces are so physically demanding and require such constant contact between your eyes and the keyboard that you couldn't possibly play them at speed unless you had them memorized. It's not a matter of "sight-reading" when you perform; it's more a matter of using the score as a friendly, familiar aide memoire to keep your mind in the music.

Other posts in this thread and on the topic of memorization over the years have suggested that you aren't being true to the music unless you've memorized it. I see it in just the opposite way -- that playing with a score liberates you from neurotic fear of memory failure and allows you to concentrate all your senses and energies on making the music sing. It's worked that way for me for a long time.

My 2nd or 3rd recital, I think I was 8 or 9 years old, and playing Kabalevsky's Prelude and Fugue Op.61, No.1. It was an absolute favorite of mine that my dad would play, at my request, while I sat next to him on the piano bench when I was really little. At the time of this recital, my folks had pretty recently split. They were both in the audience. I had the dreaded memory lapse right where a page turn would be. It took several moments of awkward fumbling before finding the line again. I'm pretty sure that's when performance anxiety started for me. As soon as the recital was over, and everyone was out of the hall, my mom had me sit at the piano, and play it through. "You know this!" she scolded. I think she was more embarassed than I was, plus whatever memories were wrapped up in the piece... Ah, music--that can touch the soul in so many ways!

In college, I was *not* a music major. There was a guy on my dorm floor who was studying percussion. He mentioned off-hand that he needed an accompanist for a marimba piece. I said, "I'll do it!" It was a really active, dissonant modern thing, but after a lot of practice and a conducted session with his instructor, it went pretty well and looked like we could pull it off. I did not have the piece memorized, however, and during the recital, when I flipped the page at the page turn, damned if the page didn't just sit totally perpendicular off the music rack. Just sat there in the center of my nose--right between the eyes! I was doing my best to keep going without knowing the piece without reading it, and to find a place where I could smooth that sucker flat--swatting at it several times before it would lay down! The looks of shock on the faces of the other students in the audience, and the sheer disappointment of my friend the marimba player will stick with me forever. We did one other piece together, and I used a page-turner. We ended up doing that piece twice--the second time for an invited engagement. So, the story does have a happy ending!

...I was sneezing, hacking up a lung, dripping like a faucet etc., wondering how I would ever make it through on stage. As I started to play my symptoms completely went away. I thought it was a miracle, but I guess your theory is a more logical explanation! haha. (And I won the competition )

Sounds like you just blew them all away!

I posted this in 2002, about an event from 1964:

Originally Posted By: myself

Chabrier arranged some themes from Wagner operas in the form of Quadrilles (dances) for piano, four hands. Mark Devoto, then a professor Reed College, arranged them for orchestra, which the college orchestra programmed. I was playing the anvil (i.e., a steel rail the machine shop used for an anvil), hitting it with a ball peen hammer. (I don't believe it makes a difference if you hit with the round or with the flat side). We didn't have a stand for the rail, so we just put it on the floor, and I knelt behind it.

In the rehearsals, the bass drummer wasn't paying attention very much, so when I noticed he wasn't playing his part I'd reach up with my left hand and thump on the drum, occasionally hitting the anvil with the hammer in my right. The orchestral pianist thought this was so amusing, that the night of the performance, he brought three of his friends up into the orchestra with him to watch this.

In the actual performance, I became very nervous. The bass drummer, however, who was a pretty good musician*, did pay attention and get his part right. I, on the other hand, lost my way in the score. Half a measure before the BIG anvil crash, I suddenly realized where I was. Ohmygod! I picked up the hammer and brought it down as fast as I could. Unfortunately, I missed the anvil, producing only a dull "thwok" as I hit the concrete floor. This was not without its effect, however. The orchestral pianist's friends, who had been watching, gave out a muffled shriek! The conductor started looking around in confusion, barely keeping the orchestra together as he tried to find the source of the strange noises emanating from stage right.

On my way out, a friend who had been sitting in the audience asked me, "Orr, whatever were you doing up there on your knees?" I had no reasonable answer.

*One Robert Chesley, who later achieved some minor fame as a playwright with the first play about AIDS, "Night Sweat."

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There is no end of learning. -Robert Schumann Rules for Young Musicians

So many drama from not having the sheet frown Thats one thing they sure did better in Vivaldi - Mendelssohn's time.

and I was saying that I am not sure I agree too much with 'better', yeah, they had the sheet music but they were also expected to be able to improvise on the spot, something that nowadays is not done anymore (at least in classical) and which is IMHO a lot more difficult to do well than to memorize a piece.

I was playing organ as a sub for a catholic church. The organ in their chapel had broken, and they had rigged up a digital piano behind the console as a sneaky quick-fix. So I dutifully pressed the "Pipe Organ 1" button and rehearsed with the cantor, and left the chapel for a few minutes before the service began.

Well, SOMETHING must have gotten pressed on the digital piano's control panel, because it was not as I left it--I didn't realize this until too late, when I tried to give the musical prelude to the Processional Hymn to start the service, and the DP gave no chords, no Pipe Organ 1, just a preset salsa beat at top volume! In my panic I could not even find the right buttons to press, and could do no better than pull the plug, restart the keyboard, press "Pipe Organ 1" yet again and reissue the Processional Hymn--at which point the procession unfroze and started walking again, cautiously this time, towards the altar.

I wasn't invited back, but I did dine out on this story a few times...

30 years ago in my teenage years, I played keyboards in bands, mostly rock and country music. We were playing the UFO song "Love to Love", which begins with keyboards and builds one instrument at a time till the lead guitar hits a screaming note. The intro is building and the screaming guitar decided to come in 3 measures early, and off beat. Instead of carrying on, the inexperienced band crumbled to a halt. With nothing left to do, and facing a silent audience, I started the intro again. This time we got though it! I still have a recording of it somewhere. How I miss those days!